Card declined, text from bank

bobblebob

Tried to pay the balance off for my holiday (2.5k) and the card got declined both times it was tried over the phone. I said I will ring back, and immediately got a text from Halifax asking to confirm its me making the transaction, and to reply with YES and wait 10 mins before trying to make the payment again. I did and it went through


Is this normal now? Ive made loads of large payments on my card and never been stopped before. Is there a way to notify the bank online before making a payment to stop it getting blocked?

LobsterMemory

Think this might be becoming standard

Nationwide sent revised T&Cs re making payments in the last few days which I think mentioned text verifications

bobblebob

There great in 1 way, but its a shame you cant pre-warn the bank, otherwise you have the embarrassment and hassle of your card getting declined before you can tell the bank its you

Willing2Learn

Happened to me to. I think it's just when unusual payments are being made they want to check that the payment is genuine. I don't mind, I think it's a good thing.

Skippy13

I had the same thing with my Virgin Atlantic credit card when I tried to pay off part of my Virgin Holidays bill although they didn't bother contacting me, they just blocked the card. When I finally got through to them they told me the card was now unblocked, I tried to make the payment again and they blocked it again. Ridiculous.

Missus_Hyde

bobblebob wrote: »

Is this normal now? Ive made loads of large payments on my card and never been stopped before. Is there a way to notify the bank online before making a payment to stop it getting blocked?

I fear that this is the norm now; I had a bit of a spat the other day with Lloyds, trying to transfer a largeish sum of money from my account to another account held by me with another bank. They stopped the payment and I had to ring the fraud squad and undergo a Spanish Inquisition to determine whether it was actually me transferring the money, or was I being put under any pressure by a fraudster to pay the money to a suspect bank account (despite the fact I'd already made a payment previously to said account in my own name:doh:)

However, when we had our extension built, I did ring Lloyds and told them before I made any payments that I would be transferring large sums of money to my builder and I didn't expect them to stop the payments; to be fair to them there was no trouble with the payments, so I'm thinking that whenever I make a large or unusual payment nowadays, I shall prewarn the bank beforehand, to save all this cloak and dagger business, every time a payment is rejected.

Unfortunately it makes a simple procedure much more complicated. :cool:

Flobberchops

bobblebob wrote: »

There great in 1 way, but its a shame you cant pre-warn the bank, otherwise you have the embarrassment and hassle of your card getting declined before you can tell the bank its you

It's one of those catch-22 situations for banks. On the one hand you have people who feel they should have completely unfettered access to their money and any kind of restriction or security check is an insult. On the other hand you have people like the OP of the "cunning con artists" thread who think banks should be liable for anything bad that happens and in any circumstance.



Obviously the banks have to find a balance between these two extremes, and many of the security features are mandated by regulators these days, not invented by the banks. Oh, and the reason pre-warning the bank wouldn't work is that it would introduce huge gaps into existing security systems. One of the most common customer queries I get is how can they inform the bank they are going on holiday, to avoid their card being blocked in a foreign country. Short answer: they can't, precisely because being out of the country is an increased financial crime risk in itself. You don't want your card to be blocked as soon as you try booking into the hotel, but at the same time if your card was to get cloned by a dishonest cafe owner in Egypt you wouldn't expect your bank to stand idly by when your card then gets used to make £2000 of transactions in Hong Kong. Take a back-up card, take some cash, keep your phone to hand in case your bank needs to verify you.